Tips from an agile project manager

Managing a project from A to Z within agile method, takes passion, dedication and great organizational skills.

As an agile project manager I have worked on projects where the budget varies from 150k to +1 million. But for every project I have taken on, the same steps are important for a smooth running and great outcome.

I'd like to give a few tips on how to manage a project successfully and what are the pitfalls you may encounter and how to manage them.

1. Planning: Keep a clean and well organized schedule. This way you can manage changes more easily within agile environment. And trust me there will always be 'urgent' changes that need immediate attention.

2. Budget: When assessing project budget, make sure you foresee enough margin for scope changes / bugs / resources / testing. If you don't, your budget might just blow up, and as a PM it is your responsibility to deliver project within budget limits. Also make sure that within budget estimations you include topics which I refer to as 'black holes'. These are often development topics that need further analysis before providing correct estimations.

3. Stakeholders: Make sure you have a clear view of who/what/when. The correct stakeholders in the correct meeting can help you reach set goals quicker and with more ease.

4. Communication: I cannot stress this enough. As a project manager you are the main link between developers/customer/user/PO/etc. Therefore keep a transparent and open communication line with all your stakeholders.

5. Scope: when setting up project scope, keep in mind that a project may last several months, if not years depending on the project. Make sure that within a defined scope you also leave room for changes within priority topics. Keep a change log and communicate these changes subsequently to the customer. So they are well informed of changes affecting budget.

6. Sprint planning & releases: foresee the inevitable. Developers fall ill, customers need urgent topics to be picked up, you name it, it can happen. So within your sprint plan create a margin for analyses/bugs/TL. Make sure you have enough tickets in your back log to keep development going smoothly if something falls through. Regarding releases, one word : RELEASE PLAN. Make one and stick to it.

That's it for now folks! If you're interested in more, drop me a line and we can work out how to help you best with any challenges you are facing within your projects or how to implemnt an agile work environment.